Seeds

It's springtime!

We had the longest winter ever in New England this year (no really, ever) and so the arrival of spring this year is extra awesome. I don't remember ever having so much snow. Let me tell you, all those snowstorms were a huge pain in the ass for a single mom of a toddler who does not own a shovel. I kept telling myself not to buy one because then it wouldn't snow again just to spite me... and it kept snowing... and snowing... and snowing. I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry. I take full responsibility for all the snow.

I remember hearing on the news at one point that there were concerns that soon there'd be nowhere left to put all the snow once they took it off the roads. That all the empty spaces were completely full. And I thought to myself, that's how I feel. Exhausted, depleted, overwhelmed. No room to put anything else. Enough already.

So I sure am glad that this winter is over. It's warm, it's sunny (okay, sometimes it's sunny, I mean this is still New England we're talking about here), and it's a new beginning.

Caroline and I had an unexpected bonus weekend together for Easter this past week, and we spent it doing happy, hopeful springtime things:

Dyeing Easter eggs...

I told one friend that dyeing real eggs with a two-year-old is like teaching a horse to do dentistry, and I stand by that statement. (I mean sure she has opposable thumbs and all but the fine motor skills aren't quite there yet.) But it was still a lot of fun.

Having Easter dinner at a friend's house, and hunting for eggs...

"Mom!! There are crackers in these eggs!!"

Just goofing around in our pajamas...

And planting a garden on our porch. Caroline provided the artwork for the labels...

And she was very enthusiastic about planting the seeds. I finally had to pull her away and convince her that the seeds were sleeping now so we had to leave them alone.

The finished product: we ended up planting sweet basil, cilantro, oregano, parsley, mixed flowers, and cosmos. All of which require full sun, which is definitely not ever happening on my middle-floor porch, but we'll see how it goes.

I think this label is actually quite an excellent rendering of mixed flowers.

Ah, springtime. Nice weather, longer days, more playground time, new beginnings. My divorce is final, I'm graduating in three weeks, I'm starting a new job. I'm pretty excited about it all.

Miss Independent

My friends tell me that I give really good advice. When they say this, they are always very careful to also say that this is true only when whatever I am giving advice on doesn't have anything to do with me. They are absolutely right. (Clearly, because my personal life is a giant heap of ridiculous disaster, most of the time.)

So lately I've been trying to give myself advice as though I am another person. You know, try to see things in my life from an outside perspective. It doesn't usually work very well because I'm pretty stubborn even when it comes to listening to myself but lately, Tyler and I have been fighting so much that I thought I'd give it a shot. Without going into brutal detail about who did what and who said what, here's what I told myself:

You have got to stop being a crazy person. That's all you can control here-- you can't do anything about his craziness, only yours. Your mutual craziness is why you got the hell outta there and you need to just stop engaging him in it. You're divorced, you're nothing to each other besides coparents, time to drop it and move on. You can't leave someone for being a douchebag and then act all surprised when they turn out to be a douchebag. Just limit communication as much as possible until the storm passes, and continue to live your own separate life in a way that makes you happy and fulfilled.

So I actually listened to myself and thank goodness for that, because my stress level has seriously been through the effing roof, you guys.

On the topic of moving on, now that I'm not very busy with school (I'm basically just waiting for graduation), I've decided to focus on my apartment. I had wanted to move closer to school for my residency, but I can't afford to break my lease, so I'm just going to change things up a little. I'll post about it when it's all done, but the point is, I realized that I couldn't get anything done without some tools, and Tyler had of course taken his toolbox with him. So I went out and bought myself a toolkit, because I'm an independent woman now and can fix things myself, damn it.

A pink toolkit.

It's got a bunch of pink tools and some hardware stuff in it. Actually, the hardware is basically a bunch of hooks and nails for hanging pictures. As if hanging pictures is all a woman would ever use tools for. Which is actually precisely why I bought it but let's not go splitting hairs here.

So now I have tools, which is pretty badass. I also got some stepstools to keep around the apartment, because I'm so short that I can't reach anything in most of my cabinets and closets. I'm pretty much set now. (Side note: you know that getting divorced was the right thing to do when you can basically replace your ex's contributions to your life in their entirety by buying a toolkit and a couple stepstools, just sayin'. Oops, that was bitchy, wasn't it. I should go back and read my own advice again.)

Caroline is pretty psyched about the toolkit too. She keeps asking to see 'mommy's tools", so I taught her the names of them all and she does pretty well remembering them. Well, she keeps calling the hammer a "hamburgler" but you know, she'll get there. Another independent woman in the making!

(P.S.- in preparation for my move to Parents.com, I've set up a Facebook fan page for the blog-- if you want to, you can follow it by clicking "like" in the box in the right-hand column over there, or go to http://www.facebook.com/unexpectedly.expecting and do it there. To be honest, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with a fan page but I am sure I will get it figured out. And it's gonna be awesome.)

"How do you do it all?"

I get this question a lot. I wish I were half as heroic as some people seem to think I am. Just because I am a single mom in dental school doesn't mean I have it all together... lots of things fall by the wayside because I am so busy and pulled in so many different directions. My flaws: dear internet, let me show you them.

Exhibit A: my desk at school. Unfortunately this is its natural state. Okay, fine, it's actually a little less messy than usual. Yes, those calendars on the bulletin board are from December.

Exhibit B: my car. The check engine light has been on since last May. A piece of it fell off while I was driving down the highway a couple weeks ago. (It was making a strange noise which stopped as soon as that piece fell off, so I assumed it was for the best.) The oil hasn't been changed since... well... I guess Tyler changed it last. That means it's been... longer than recommended. I've had one headlight out for at least three months. In my defense, I did try to change the headlight, but I couldn't get the cover off so I gave up and figured that one headlight was better than none. Plus it makes my car look totally badass.

Exhibit C: my utilities. Paying the bills was always Tyler's job. Sometimes I forget to pay a bill until whatever it is I'm not paying for gets shut off. To be fair, this is a very effective reminder technique. Well played, cable company. Well played.

Oh no. Now that I've started listing my irresponsibilities, I can't stop. Sometimes I put meat in the fridge to defrost and forget about it for a couple weeks. Sometimes I put off taking out the trash until the smell forces me to do it. I have incomplete audits on some of my patients' charts that were due last October. I have a strange aversion to writing papers for oral surgery and so I haven't fulfilled a single oral surgery requirement since 2008. Sometimes I keep my Netflix DVDs for 3 weeks at a time because I forget that I have them. AHHH!! Can't stop!!

My point is. I don't do it all. It only looks like I do.

Now please share all of your similar stories in the comments below, to make me feel better. And if you have no similar stories and you actually do "do it all", please refrain from saying so.

Mirrors

Caroline and I kept our apartment when Tyler moved out. It has its positives-- we didn't have to move, we are both used to living here, and her daycare is right across the street. But I didn't feel like I could keep living in a space that represented our old life because it made me feel sad and uneasy all the time. Plus, some of our furniture went with Tyler, of course. So I changed things up. Made things brighter and bolder. It's a fresh start. Not anywhere near finished, and I still have lots of blank walls, but... it's a beginning.

Here's the living room couch. I got it from IKEA and put it together, all by myself! Our living room used to be a bunch of blah browns, so I love the bright blue.

Our bedroom used to be blue with like a country quilt on the bed, but I re-did it in bright red. Which you can't really see at all in this picture and it also looks like the reds don't match each other, and in general it just looks kind of horrible. But I promise they do match when there isn't two different types of light, and it looks good in person. There, now you're convinced.

I've spent an awful lot of time at IKEA lately, replacing things Tyler took with him and getting new stuff to redecorate. It is kind of a depressing place to go when you are dealing with a situation like this. There are all these cute little families buying baby stuff and couples moving in together and being all affectionate and making out and stuff in the checkout lines and vom. I try to just charge through with my cart and pick up what I need and book it outta there.

There is also the problem of how to decorate when I have literally no money to spare. But I needed to redecorate in some way for my own mental health, so I have resorted to using lots of mirrors. IKEA has lots of them for cheap, and they help open up the place, which is dark and small. At first it kind of bothered me to be seeing my reflection everywhere I turned.

But now I kind of like it. Like I said, it's open. And I'd rather have mirrors than mass-produced art that you find stacked in an IKEA bin. We used to have our walls filled with paintings and art from different places we'd visited, but a lot of that went with Tyler, so I guess I'm just going to have to take some trips to fill up my walls again!

Besides, my new life is going to be one that actually includes me and what I want. Rather than centering around what I can do for everyone else while I just sort of fade into the background. So the mirrors are kind of fitting.

I like our "new" place. It's not our forever home, of course. But it will do for now. For the first time in my life, I have a place that's just mine. And it turns out that that's a pretty good feeling.

Nursery photos!

Well, the nursery isn't completely finished, but it won't be until after my shower on February 1, so I thought I'd post some mostly-done pictures. We're in love with it... it's the only room in the apartment where everything matches! Sorry the pictures look so gloomy. It's snowing here yet again, but I promise it's a bright and happy yellow room when the sun shines in!

This is the view from the door.

The wonderful big (and usually very sunny) window!

My nursing glider... I sit in it once in awhile just to look around the room. I made that lampshade, by the way, out of an extra valence that came with the bedding set. (It was a plain white lampshade before.) The little table is just temporary-- Tyler's dad is building us one to match the rest of our nursery furniture.

Changing table with quilt hanging above it and diaper stacker. I found that fold-up travel swing on the right at a yard sale for ridiculously cheap. Actually, everything in this room came from a yard sale except the changing table and glider.

And the crib! The thing hanging on it is a playmat that I made by cutting up the bumper that came with our bedding set. I'm too paranoid to use the bumper since there have been all those studies that show they may increase the risk of SIDS, so we have the breathable mesh kind on there instead. I didn't want to waste the cute bumper, though! I left the ties on the ends to tie rattles and toys to so they don't get away from the baby while it's playing.

So there it is... our bumblebee nursery. It has a bookshelf on another wall that's already filling up with baby books, and a nice big walk-in closet too, which we are in the process of organizing. I love it!!

A quick update on other things: the contractions are somewhat better, I think resting has helped a lot. I still constantly feel like I'm in early labor, though, so that is... exhausting. Tyler is in New Zealand (!) for the next two and a half weeks, on a trip with some other geology and paleontology students. I'm really jealous (and pretty lonely and bored), but he'll be back soon enough. It's weird-- he's been planning this trip for so long that I always think of it as "sometime a long time from now, Tyler will go to New Zealand, and then after that we'll have the baby." And now he's there, so that means baby is coming really soon! Ack! Nine weeks until my due date is not a very long time... here's hoping baby stays put for at least another six.

I've been MIA

...and I'm sorry. I had good reasons, though! We moved this weekend to our bigger apartment (we got everything straightened out, and the new place is everything I wanted) and just got our internet connected today. I've been spending a lot more time in clinic so I'm really tired... where is that 2nd trimester energy boost everyone talks about? And, just as importantly, where is my pregnant-lady glow?? Everyone at school (when they are not staring at my growing belly) keeps commenting on how tired I look. I want to say, I know I look like crap, people, I've got a lot on my plate here...

Now that the excuses are out of the way [:)], I'll give you all an update. The baby is doing well, we went to our monthly appointment last Thursday at 15 weeks and Tyler got to hear the heartbeat for the first time. Well, at least he heard it until the baby started beating its little fists (or feet?) at the doppler and making this "BAM BAM BAM BAMBAMBAM" noise! The midwife said some babies don't like the doppler so they kick at it... looks like we're going to have a feisty little one on our hands!

And we moved this weekend... we actually got the entire place mostly put together, because we had a lot of help from our family and one of our guy friends. This week has taken a lot out of me since I didn't get to rest at all this weekend, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to go pass out now...

Belly pic tomorrow, I've been slacking!!

Maybe I'm crazy...

But I swear I felt the baby move!! I was lying in bed last night and I felt this feeling like a fish flopping in my lower belly. I sat bolt upright and begged baby to do it again, but I didn't feel anything else for the rest of the night, so I figured it was probably a muscle twitch or something. It was like nothing I've ever felt before, but then again, I have felt a lot of weird new feelings since being pregnant.

Then today, I was out to lunch with my mom and I took a big gulp of ice water. A couple seconds later, I felt it again! And then a few minutes later, sort of a tapping feeling from inside. I couldn't believe it! I am 14w3d today, which is so early to feel movement, especially for a first baby, but I don't know what else I could be feeling. (It's not gas! [:P]) I can't wait until I can feel it move all the time and be sure that it's the baby... it is such an exciting feeling.

Okay, update on the apartment situation: thank you ladies so much for all your wonderful advice on my last post. I definitely would have taken it and gotten legal help, but it turns out I didn't need to because I went back to the place and literally begged them and explained the situation. (And, okay, I might have cried a little bit for extra sympathy.) They had to contact some corporate guy and explain it to him, and he said that I could move on the 13th (the day I had gotten everyone to help us move) to a different apartment, and he would waive the transfer fee. Phew!! It was a huge relief. So now we (or I should say I, until Tyler gets home from Oregon tomorrow) are packing stuff up and just waiting for moving day. The new place is in a much nicer spot-- you can walk in on the ground floor in the front, which is nice because we'll have a stroller, but the back is raised up so it's a balcony up off the ground level (essentially the opposite of the place I didn't like). And, it faces the woods instead of a busy road, so it's much quieter and safer. I feel good about it and I can't wait to move now.

And, here are my 14-week belly pics-- they were taken at 14w0d, but I happened to be lazy that day and didn't post them...

So upset I don't know what to do

This apartment thing is spiraling out of control. Of course Tyler is gone again this week so I have to deal with it all on my own, once again. I don't know how we are going to make this work, but here goes...

The girl from the leasing office emailed me and said we can't transfer to a new apartment until we've lived in the crappy first floor one for 30 days because "it's company policy". First of all, that doesn't even make sense from their point of view. They'll just have to repaint and clean everything again after we lived there. Second of all, it means they are telling us we have to move everything we own twice in two weeks, because we lose our current place at the end of September, and the 30 days expires on October 2. We finally found a day (September 13) to have all our family and friends help us, since I can't do heavy lifting, and there's no way we'll be able to get everyone (or anyone? not sure) to help us again two weeks later.

I just don't feel comfortable living in this place right next to the road on the ground floor, especially since Tyler is gone so often. And there is no way we can move everything twice in two weeks. But if we break the lease, it will cost us thousands of dollars. It's going to be hard enough to afford this baby and the rent increase as it is, we can't waste 60 days notice plus 2 month's rent as a penalty (this place costs over $1100 a month-- welcome to Connecticut).

I don't know what to do, I keep calling Tyler but he isn't picking up since he's working right now... I am so upset!!! [:'(]

Apartment drama

I'm not a very picky girl. When we decided we needed to move for the baby, all I wanted was relatively inexpensive rent, 2 bedrooms, and a washer/dryer would have been a plus. Well, I found all of those things, and we got our keys today. I went to check out the apartment tonight, and after 5 minutes in the place, I walked to the leasing office and requested a transfer to a different unit.

I really am not that high-maintenance, but I just can't live in that place. There was nothing really wrong with the unit itself, although the kitchen and bathroom were smaller than they had been in the other unit I'd toured, and the appliances were a little old. Those things I can live with. But the lady at the renter's office told me that it was raised off of ground level, and it wasn't. You have to go up stairs to get to the front door, but the back door opens onto a ground-level patio, which is literally about 10 feet away from a busy street. No way am I moving into a place like that with a child. I would constantly worry myself sick. A toddler could run right out of the apartment into oncoming traffic in less than 30 seconds. Besides, I just don't feel that safe on the ground floor in an apartment complex when people are constantly walking by. Also, the patio smelled very strongly of smoke, even though there was no one around, so I guess the neighbors are heavy smokers, and I can't really live with that either.

So I went straight to the renter's office and asked to transfer. Luckily (I guess my luck hasn't run out yet!) there's another 2-bedroom unit on the 2nd floor available on the opposite end of the complex, far away from the street. We'll be finalizing the transfer on Thursday. To me, a $600 transfer fee and $10 more in rent per month is well worth the money!

Anyway (calming down now), we spent most of the weekend trying to get rid of the fleas (thanks to all who made excellent suggestions, they helped a lot!) and I think we got rid of the majority of them. I also shopped for maternity clothes with my mom. I don't really need the tops yet, but the pants situation is getting kind of dire. And my Bella band is getting kind of annoying. I had a lot of difficulty finding clothes that fit-- what the heck do pregnant teenagers do?? But I ended up buying clothes in the smallest size they had, and hopefully I will just grow into them. I am sure I will long for the days when I was too small to fit into any clothes, so I'm not complaining at all! Although the saleslady did get a little snippy with me ("those pants are too big for you. You need an extra-small. And we don't sell that here.")... even though I didn't even ask for her help!

Then yesterday for our first anniversary, we went for a hike in a nearby state park that has pretty waterfalls, and had a picnic lunch. Then we did some shopping, went out to dinner, and rented a movie-- a perfect day! My parents even got us a little cake from the same people who did our wedding cake, so we had that for dessert. It was Tahitian vanilla bean with raspberry preserves... yummm... I'm eating a piece of it right now and it is still just as delicious as it was a year ago.

Now Tyler is gone again, but only for a week this time. He does occasional jobs for the guy who did all the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park, and this time he's in Portland, Oregon dealing with one of this guy's traveling exhibits. It's good money for us, so I can't complain about him being gone-- besides, it's only a week, that's nothing to us!

Now entering the second trimester!

Well, today is the first day of my second trimester. It's so weird. When I was about 6 weeks along and having that "no fetal pole" scare, I felt like I would literally never get here... and now here I am! With a little bloaty belly to show for it. I feel like it's okay to have a belly today. Yesterday, it just meant I was fat, but today, it's definitely baby. [:)] (Since I just posted my 12w pic, I figured I'd skip the 13w one...)

I don't have a whole lot to report, other than the following:

1. I did my first crown prep today and it was actually really fun. I had been wondering when we were going to learn how to do crowns since no one had ever mentioned them throughout the first two years of dental school.
2. Monday, September 1 is our first anniversary! We are delinquent and have no plans. Whatever we do will probably involve eating a lot of food, since I am eating everything that isn't nailed down these days. It is so great to be free of the morning sickness!
3. Our apartment and all our pets are infested with fleas, and Frontline isn't working. I don't know what we're going to do-- the vet said we could bring them in for a flea treatment, but we'd need to flea-bomb our apartment. And I can't do that because I'm pregnant! If anyone has any suggestions, please post below...

New apartment, here we come!

I signed the lease on the new apartment yesterday. I'm really excited about it. It's just been renovated, so it has all new appliances, granite countertops, a gas fireplace (!!) and a walk-in closet in the master bedroom! And it's on the second floor on a corner, so because of the way the building is set up we won't have to hear people walking around above us. I still can't believe how inexpensive the rent is (for CT, anyway). Overall, it is perfect. I just wish Tyler could have been here to share my excitement.

We had a nice phone conversation yesterday that made me feel better, though. He is getting excited about the baby, and he told me I did a really good job of finding a nice place to live for not too much money. I've started to look at stuff for the nursery, which I know is premature, but it's still fun! Tyler doesn't want to find out the sex (although I may have to throw down on him eventually, since I am the one who has to feel like poo all day long), so it's kind of hard to find stuff I like that is gender-neutral.

I like this safari theme, though I'm not sure if it's too little-boy-ish. Anyway, this brings me to my next point...

I'm starting to get really anxious about possibly losing the baby. It's still so early in the pregnancy, and somehow within less than 2 weeks I have gone from being really upset about it to really nervous about losing it. I feel almost guilty looking at nursery stuff because I feel like it's just not a sure thing yet. I definitely feel guilty about getting my parents and Tyler's parents all excited about the baby when we don't know if it is happening for sure, because if it doesn't happen, they're going to have to wait years until we try again.

And I know this is really silly, but what if this is my only chance? What if it's not an indication that I actually don't have fertility problems like my doctor said I would, but instead it's just some weird coincidence that I was able to get pregnant? I am kind of freaked out about this, even though I know that logically it's approximately the dumbest idea ever.

Anyway, I guess I'm scared that I'm starting to get excited when I am only about six weeks in. And there's the whole moving thing, too-- because now we're locked into moving, and if I lose it, we'll have this extra room for the next few years that was supposed to be for the baby. I know we didn't have a choice because our lease was up, but I still can't help feeling... weird about all this.

I am the luckiest, part 2

So I just checked out a 2-bedroom apartment with a washer and dryer that's just up the street from where we live now, in the same complex as one of my friends. And it is perfect and available on the perfect date! We can take "ownership" of it the day after Tyler gets back from ND, and the rent is only-- get this-- $9 more per month than we pay right now for our 1-bedroom. (Since we are both in school, they have a program that allows cheaper rent.) I can't believe that this is working out so perfectly! Ahhhhhh!!

Also, I checked out my health insurance benefits today (yes, I was going to look up fun stuff like nurseries and names, but I got sidetracked by the practical) and they also? Are awesome. I have one co-pay for my first prenatal visit and nothing after that, diagnostics and labs are 100% covered, and I have to pay an admission fee when I deliver-- that's it! Well, I'm sure I am missing some things (and who knows whether I'll have problems or need a C-section, etc.), so I need to get a more detailed coverage certificate and read it, but still. Amazing!

I am just so happy that this is all working out, I want to scream at the top of my lungs and do backflips. However, I can't do backflips, pregnant or not, and our current apartment is too small anyway. I can't wait to talk to Tyler tonight and tell him!

Apartments: this is all happening way too fast

Since we are unexpectedly expanding our family, we are probably going to need something a little bigger than our 700 sq ft 1-bedroom apartment. A washer and dryer would also be a plus. Unfortunately, I have to let our apartment complex know that we are moving out by Monday... but we don't have anywhere to move into yet, and I don't want to leave myself with only 30 days to find a place and move (while Tyler is gone, and I have to take the national boards on July 14)! I guess my family could help me, but I haven't told them about the pregnancy and I'm not planning to until we confirm a heartbeat-- my first appointment is July 18.

Soooo I went and talked to the office here today and they gave me these 3 options:

1) Notify them Monday that we're moving out and be out by July 31.

2) Extend our lease here for one month and be out by August 31 (Tyler would be back to help!).

3) Sign a new lease for 9 months instead of a year (the baby would be about 2 months old when we'd have to find a new place and move).

I have to study for two exams tomorrow, so I can't obsess over this right now, but I am thinking option 2 is the best. I have an appointment at another complex up the street for Saturday, and maybe they'll have something perfect for us that's available in August and then I can take that option... but I am probably dreaming because that would just work out too well. In case you haven't noticed I haven't had the best luck lately (see: unplanned pregnancy. Vomiting this morning for the first time before I've even finished my 5th week. ...That's about it but it seems like way too much to me.)

Anyway, if you've got any advice on the apartment situation, throw it this way...

No leak here, ma'am

This is a little random, but I need to distract myself from my annoyingly still-numb bottom lip (today was local anesthesia, part II, and apparently my friend really got me good this time).

There has been a giant square hole covered with a plastic sheet in our bathroom ceiling for about six weeks now. The people in the apartment upstairs had an expensive fancy showerhead, which leaked, naturally, and made our ceiling fall in. The maintenance man's solution was to cut out the destroyed part of the ceiling and cover it with a trashy-looking plastic sheet until he was sure no more water was coming down before fixing the ceiling. Well, there hasn't been any water, but there hasn't been any ceiling-fixing action going down either (despite repeated requests). So today I came up with a game plan to get him to come back to fix the stupid thing.

I came home from clinic and went straight to the rental office. I thought maybe my white coat would intimidate them (I'm a dental student, bitches! Heed my white coat! Fix my ceiling!). I complained that my shower was leaking into the apartment downstairs. I thought that since the water leaking problem got his attention last time, it should get it again. It must have worked because the maintenance man arrived 5 minutes after I got back to my apartment. He went in and checked the shower. The verdict: "no leak here, ma'am." I said "huh... weird. Can you fix my ceiling now?" He gave me a dirty look and said he'd be back Friday at 9. SCORE!!!!

At least now I've figured out the secret to getting things fixed around here: trickery!

Also, for your viewing pleasure (?), here's a nice pic of me about to give my friend anesthesia:

Not sure how she let me stick a needle in her mouth with that creepy look on my face...